I have a question. idk I guess if goes in general (satellite images)

[Freohr Datia]

In satellite images, why does the water looks so weird? Are those lumps parts of the ocean floor that we can see through the water? Cause I don't think the water can do that.

But even for ocean floors those always looked so odd to me. I always looked at a satellite image and thought "No, that can't really be real."

Anyway... Look at it! (Though even the land looks kinda weird)

And this doesn't have it. Does it have to do with the angle?

Anyway all the text books have the satellite images with the water looking really weird so it's either angles or textbooks are lying or the plain water pics are lying.

[Strawman]

The second one doesn't have it because of the resolution of the water. And by that I mean the satellite or whoever distributes the image/takes the image doesn't have the satellite take full resolution images of the water so you only see the surface and its not exactly correct. If you look around those islands, that water is in high resolution and shows exactly what the water looks like. I don't know about the first one but yes if a map or image has "lumps" in the water it is showing the seafloor.

I'm probably wrong on most of that though.

Edited September 29, 2010 by acey555

[IntegerZero]

Acey is right. It's just the the seafloor that you can see. (Or partly at least) The resolution most likely just makes it lumpy because it cannot show finer details. That's why you can see the seafloor in the second picture, but not the first. If you get a similar resolution European map, it would be more like the second picture.